This year's Bellevue Sculpture Exhibition, featuring many works focused on the environment, will launch Saturday with a grand opening at City Hall. The city's ninth biennial exhibition -- entitled "Sculpted Green" -- features 39 works in and around City Hall and Downtown Park designed to be surprising, thought-provoking, humorous and beautiful.

"With environmental concerns moving to the forefront of the national mind, incorporating the 'green' theme into this year's exhibition brings an important issue to our show," said Bellevue Mayor Grant Degginger. "This is not simply an exhibit of amazing art. It is an event that can inspire and broaden people's thinking around how they live and treat their surroundings."

The grand opening will be 6 to 8 p.m., Saturday, starting at City Hall. There will be hors-d'oeuvres and live entertainment, and many of the artists will be there. Wear walking shoes to view the sculptures at the Downtown Park.

"Sculpted Green" runs through Oct. 5 and features the work of 33 artists from Washington, Canada and across the U.S. Artist approaches to the green theme stretch across the spectrum. Whether they are using salvaged materials, finding art inherent in nature or repositioning natural wood pieces in unusual contexts, the artists are commenting on our responsibility to the world around us.

"The range of materials used in the exhibition is unique and intriguing -- from ear plugs to recycled steel to living moss," said Betina Finley, chair of the Bellevue Arts Commission and of the Exhibition planning committee. "The widely varied inspirations, techniques and materials behind this collection provide broad and deep commentary on all manner of environmental issues."

One of the largest sculptures in the Exhibition is "Building Wave," created by Christopher Fennell. "Building Wave" is a monumental wooden wave installed in the pond at the Downtown Park and made entirely from boards scavenged from local construction sites and lumber yard scraps.

Larissa Wilson's piece "Time to Make a Difference" brings technology with an eerie yet empowering twist to the Exhibition. Her work is a digital display counting down the estimated seconds left in Wilson's life. Wilson hopes that her piece will bring "a heightened awareness of the need to be engaged in community and the issues of our time."

A popular feature of the Exhibition is the Teen Project. This year's project is an interactive element called "Sculptural Travel Bugs," which ties in to the increasingly popular activity of geocaching.

Students at four Bellevue schools and the Ground Zero Teen Center created 200 small-scale "travel bug" sculptures, using recycled materials. Tagged, logged online and then moved around the community in the worldwide treasure hunt game known as geocaching, the ultimate destination for these bugs is City Hall for exhibition. To learn more about the travel bugs and geocaching please visit http://www.sculpturaltravelbugs.com/.